What is Male Ejaculate Made of?

The male ejaculate is pretty amazing. God has designed men to produce components that exist within the male ejaculate not only for fertilization of the female egg, but to survive the journey. It’s miraculous when you know the lengths that the sperm has to go through in order to get to the egg.

Most people think that the entire male ejaculate is produced and stored in the testicles. However, only the sperm, which consist of the male DNA, are produced there. Then they live for roughly 24 hours in the epididymis located right behind the testicles(Breene, 2013).

Before ejaculated the sperm get fluid from the prostate. This is the largest ingredient to the male ejaculate and is responsible for the volume. This neutralizes the acidic vaginal fluid. The seminal vesicles produces fluid that consists of fructose or sugar, fatty acids, and proteins that serve to nourish the sperm. The bulbourethral gland provides fluid that cleans out urine in the urethra and lubricates it as well (Chughtai et al., 2005).

The semen only consist of 1% of the ejaculate produced from a male orgasm. The other 99% is comprised of more than 200 separate proteins, vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, calcium, chlorine, citric acid, fructose, lactic acid, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, vitamin B12, and zinc (Edwards, Tollaksen, & Anderson, 1981).

Breene, S. 2013. Superfood or Supergross? The Truth About Semen. http://greatist.com/health/nutrition-of-semen. February 19th.